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"The face of the operation is Briatore (referred to exclusively in the film by his colleagues and angry, chanting detractors as "Flavio"), an anthropomorphic radish who spends most of his time at QPR plotting to fire all of the managers."

At press time, Harbaugh had sent Michigan’s athletic department an envelope containing a heavily annotated seating chart, a list of the 63,000 seat views he had found unsatisfactory, and a glowing 70-page report on section 25, row 12, seat 9, which he claimed is “exactly what the great sport of football is all about.”

Defense was atrocious and the offense was terrible. Give IU credit as they took away back cuts and didn't give many open looks. Regardless of officiating, IU was better and Sparty played them better here

Courage isn't just one of the virtues; it's the one virtue that holds all other virtues together.

Huh? Black hole? C'mon. He missed a few shots but he played the role of a pretty good scorer, of which he is. Defense was bad at times I agree but to say Burke was a "black hole" or "bad" in anyway, I respectfully, totally disagree.

I thought overall the refs did well. To be honest, I was expecting a lot worse. The fact that we got the charge calls that we should have actually surprised me. Terrible And-1 call that should have been travelling, and at an extremely unfortunate time of the game. I thought we should have had a couple And-1 calls go our way that didn't.

Surprised it was actually that close when you look at the stats. IU beat us significantly in FG%, 3pt FG%, FT's, Rebounds, and even assists. And, GRIII was Casper the friendly ghost. Stauskas was nearly as invisible.

Guarantee that not all of these things will happen when IU comes to AA. I'm already looking forward to the rematch.

IU already lost a game at home. We have that advantage over them.

Cody Zeller is now my player of the year, although I want Burke to win and I know he has plenty of chances to take it. But this game by Zeller made me a believer. And I don't like that.

Burke, heroball. With that said, IU's defense was taking some of our players out of the game, and in some ways, Burke had to do what he had to do. However, if he would have been able to drive and pass, maybe they could have gotten into the game, right? It could have changed the game completely.

Agree with quite a few of your points. Burke is still POY. I know that's very homer but if you were to know me I'm far from a homer type-fan. Trey has showed up in every game, including tonight, where Zeller has not. Tyler had a hell of a game tonight and that can't be denied but I still give the nod, easily, to Trey Burke.

I think GRIII lack of movement was often predicated by the pick 'n roll game that dominated our offensive sets. You don't want GRIII slashing into the lane as Burke and McGary/Horford/Morgran are setting up the pick plays, or Burke going 1 on 1 into the lane. This lack of offensive motion occurs frequently under similar scenarios in most recent games. I don't think GRIII is being lazy on offense...I think it's somtimes a symptom of our offensive sets.

Right now, GRIII's main offensive contributions arise from garbage clean-ups, the transition game, and occasional drive-and-kick jumpers. I'd like to see this change going forward, as I think he's underutilzed in our normal offensive flow, but we have 4 legit scorers on the floor. It's a nice problem to have.

but if GRIII isn't going to go after those put backs on O, he damn well better get back on D. And there were a few plays where zoeller beat him down the court. a couple hustle plays here and there can be the difference between winning and losing. outside of mcgary, we had very few plays where we outhustled IU for the ball.

I was expecting Zeller to be better at getting his own shot this game...his points seemed to come off of easy put-backs and wide open dunks. Points are points, but he didn't play as polished as I expected him to. Definitely not POY

The prospect of Donnal, Irving, and Walton coming in, especially if GR3 returns, makes me think that next years team may be better. I think in these big games, we rely on Burke too much whereas next year we will be able to spread things around more.

I'm not pissed at him by any means. I think we will have more turnovers next year with Walton at the helm, but I am counting on McGary, Levert, Staukus to improve from this year and everything I have seen from Walton makes me feel that the drop off won't be as great as people think.

Agreed. It was like 2 years ago when our offense was basically D-Mo on the pick and roll for a layup, slip to Morgan for a dunk or find and open Hardaway for 3. When Burke came in last year, we had lots of ball movement but as he became comfortable with the pick and roll we're running that same offense again. Works better with Morgan. He sets the best screens on the team. McGary is learning though. Horford is a work in progress.

We have great talent coming in, but if we lose Burke and Hardaway then that's some major leadership being lost. Also, Burke and Hardaway are go to players. I don't see anyone right now that is near being a go to guy yet.

This team will both learn from tonight's loss and adapt to play a lot better when the Hoosiers visit the Crisler Center. Besides, playing Ohio and Indiana on the road have prepared this team for the intensity they will see in East Lansing.

It's OK to lose a few games early, as long as they don't lose later in the season. Most of all, this team needs a few games like this to be fully prepared for the NCAA Tournament. As long as they stay in the 1-2 seed category, they will be fine.

There's always a catch 22 when it comes to post touches, we really don't have a back to the basket type of big, Morgan has some decent moves but doesn't finish all that well and Horford is a bit of the same. In our offense it's not necessarily efficient to throw the ball to a big that's more than 8 feet from the hoop because they aren't great 1 on 1 players offensively.

the combo of mcgary, horford and morgan did fine tonite. they played almost even with zoeller, stats-wise, an all american. this game was clearly on GRIII and Stauskus who were outperformed by watford and hulls by a wide margin.

I'm sick of them running ball screen after ball screen at the point until the shot clock runs down and they have to make a contested play. Where did the drive and kick go or any other basketball play for that matter? It's the same thing they did against OSU and it just doesn't work. They need to penetrate and at times it looks like they don't even try to.

First, I love your username. But anyway, I'm not saying they have to do anything like that, but doing the exact opposite the entire game doesn't help either. It was almost like they didn't even want to try to get inside at times. Just my thoughts.

This confuses me about the offense. JB is known to for his motion offense and while I understand that he's ventured away from that the last few years, it seems that Michigan has nowhere to go when Burke is being effectively defended. It's too much Burke looking to get his own shot when in a traditional JB offense he would back it out and spread the floor and show that he can think three passes out.

This really is my biggest concern about this team. JB is going to have to figure out a Plan B for Burke when a team is slowing them down and forcing them into a half court game.

you do realize that IU has an all-american 7 footer standing under the basket on D waiting for anyone to drive to the hoop? he altered countless shots tonite. hence, all the misses in the paint tonite. we just needed to hit those open 3s. stauskus, thj, and griii were brutal shooting outside shots tonite.

Plenty of chances down 4 and tied in the second half to take control. Young team couldn't quite do it on the road. Not sure where some of the complaints are coming from. Plenty of iu turnovers and held under 70 points before the ft spree at the end. If Stauskas is a sophomore or junior I think we win by 10.

Gotta start stronger, can't force dumb long threes, freshman need to grow up quicker. But the biggest one might be learning how to retake and own the lead. With this game and the OSU game, they were great at sticking to a gameplan on the comeback, but once they tied it or got close, they went off the rails.

All in all though, not concerned. Its a really young team that'll still learn and get better in time for the tourneys.

You know what? You're right AND you make excellent points. Have a cookie and feel special, because you've earned it, buddy!

Frustrating in many ways, but I'm actually not worried at all. We played the team that will take over the #1 ranking in a tight game despite terrible 3-point shooting and being on the road. Get Morgan back, make our open 3s, and start a little smarter, and we win. I'm betting on us in the rematch - it always sucks to lose, but this one doesn't really get to me.

He was 9-24. That's 37%. He rarely passed the ball and killed our offensive rhythm every time we got close. Explain to me why you think he had a good game. Sure he had a better game than the freshmen, but he did not play well.

Who was he supposed to pass to? The guy who went 1-5 from 3 (0-4 before the final minute) and was 3 for 10 overall? Oh I know, the guy that was 1-6 all game and scored 2 total points. McGary had a decent game but Michigan doesn't normally play through him. Trying to put the game on his shoulders in Assembly hall would probably not have worked out well. To say Burke's number are bad suggests there was a better option and the stats don't bare that out. You find me an offensive rhythm stat that suggests Burke was a problem in this game and we can continue this debate. Was it Burke's best game? No. Was he any part of the reason that Michigan lost? No.

I certainly don't pin the whole game on him, but I don't agree with your position, if you're suggesting that our point guard should basically ignore two of our four main scorers. Even if they start poorly, you have to have confidence that they can snap out of it if you can get them some looks. I don't mind Burke taking a lot of shots, but I don't like to see him shoot threes so early in the clock. Work the ball around and then if the shot comes open later in the possession, OK.

That is a fair assessment. Burke could have and probably should have worked the clock a little better to try and find guys better looks. However, this is two games on the road where Nik has struggled mightily. He had that wide open three where he stuttered and bricked it. He seems to press a little more on the road and I'm sure Burke has noticed this and lost a little confidence in him. That doesn't mean he should ignore him completely, but there's not much Burke can do when the best shooter is that cold.

So your view is that when your teammates are struggling, just stop passing them the ball? Just stop running the offense and go 1 v. 1? The doesn't seem like a very good recipe for success, and it certainly wasn't tonight. I've already found you a stat. Burke took 24 shots including 12 threes, and didn't make very many of them. He took one third of the teams shots. Sure, he kept us in the game at times, but he also kept us out of it at times.

Burke took one third of the teams shots because he and THJ were the only consistent producers. There's nothing wrong with limiting a guy's touches that's struggling. Stauskas was struggling. THJ had a good game and Burke kept feeding him, hence the 8 assists. Just out of curiosity, if Burke had kept feeding Stauskas and Nik kept struggling would you then blame Burke for forcing the issue when it clearly wasn't working? There were quite a few problems with the offense tonight, but to say that Burke was the primary issue seems a little off.

Someone mentioned above, our offense in this game and Ohio looked terrible, lots of standing around at the three point line and watching. Johnny B. needs to get more motion going, I just thnk we stand on the 3 point line too much or just dribble too much and wait for a potential pick and roll, where's the motion?